December 31, 2013

Can you believe it's the last day of 2013?!? Where has this year gone, seriously, it feels like 2012 just ended like last week. Overall this has been a great year for me, I hope it has been for you also. I feel like a lot of blogging dreams came true this year, but aside from that personally I feel like it was a good year for me. 2013 was the year I killed my anxiety...I don't talk about it much (ever?) on here but anxiety had been ruling my life for the past 5 years, I had stomach issues a few years ago and it triggered debilitating anxiety that was affecting my life and job. I finally kicked it in the ass this year thanks to an amazing doctor who finally found something that worked for me, I feel like a new person...I honestly never thought I would feel "normal" again so just that alone has made this a great year for me. I hate to get mushy but I really do want to thank you all for reading and commenting on my blog and talking to me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc...even though this ended up being a good year it was hard for me in the beginning and talking to you guys and knowing people look forward to my posts is what got me through some difficult times, I can't express how much I appreciate that.

Onto less serious things...nail polish...lets talk about Mainstream favorites shall we? Overall I was all about indies this year...I actually had a bit of a difficult time thinking of polishes to put on this list. I even though about including 2 of my favorites from last year because they are still my 2 favorite polishes ever (OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Nails Inc Baker Street in case you're wondering). Then I made my list and it was all textures so I was like really Jen? All Textures? No. I ended up going through all of my old posts and rediscovering some polishes I loved and had forgotten about...they have now been pulled from the Helmer so I can wear them again and remember how much I liked them! Check out all my favorites after the jump, to see the original posts about these just click on the name of the polish!

December 30, 2013

Hi guys! Hope you all had a great weekend, mine was really nice! The most exciting thing though was finding the Gwen Stefani Collection at my local nail supply. I don't think I have ever been so excited for a collection. Gwen Stefani has pretty much my favorite singer since I was 11, Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt was the first album I ever bought and I've seen them live more times than I can count on fingers and toes...I also have 2 No Doubt tattoos! Pretty much anyone that knows me in real life knows that the 2 things I love most are No Doubt and nail polish haha!

Anyway, when I heard OPI was collaboration with Gwen on a collection I pretty much died from fangirling. I've been stalking calling my local nail supply every couple days for WEEKS asking about this collection and when I called on Saturday and the owner said they got them I hauled booty over there and snatched up whole collection, the owner even gave me an empty display to have...he's pretty much the best lol!

December 29, 2013

It's that time of year...favorites time! I'll have 2 posts this year, one for Indie and Niche brands and one for the Mainstream brands. I decided to start out with my Indie and Niche brand favorites, this was HARD to narrow down. Indie and Niche brands have overall blown me away this year, these brands continue to put out unique and beautiful polishes that rule my favorites. Check out all my favorites after the jump, these are not in order of how much I love them...just alphabetically. I'll include a link to the original posts in case you want to read more about them and/or find out where to buy these!

December 28, 2013

Hi guys! Anyone doing anything fun this weekend? Can you believe it's the last weekend of 2013?!? I sure can't! I don't know what I'm doing, maybe making a list of resolutions for 2014...I'm actually going to try to stick to them for a change. The big one on my list is staying debt free, I literally just paid off all my debt this week (which I never thought would happen!). I'm determined to keep it that way, in a perfect world I'd put all my money into savings and then buy a condo/townhouse/house in the next year or so. Wouldn't that be amazing, hopefully I can do it!

Today I have a little bit of Lacquer Lust spam for ya. I picked these all up at Love Preview. I wish you could have seen me shopping at the Lacquer Lust booth, I basically bought everything I didn't already have. The lighting was so bad that I couldn't even see what they looked like lol. Luckily everything is gorgeous, which I'm not surprised about because Jo makes great polishes!

December 27, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have the 18k Gold & Silver top coat OPI released as part of the Mariah Carey Collection for Holiday 2013. Much like The Man With The Golden Gun from last year's Holiday Collection this polish comes in a collectors box and is LE. This is pretty expensive so I put off picking it up for quite a while, eventually the collector in me was like BUY THE POLISH JEN so I did haha! This is a topper full of 18K gold and silver flake glitter. The flakes are nice and dense but a bit on a small side. There are some bigger pieces floating around but they are sparse. The formula was really nice, it was easy to get a lot of the flakes on the nail and the coverage was good. I used 1 coat over each of my base colors below.

over Misa Foggy Breath at 3am (lighting- sunlight)

over Misa Icy River (lighting- shade)

over Zoya Rue (lighting- shade)

over Zoya Brigitte (lighting- shade)

This top coat retails for $30 and is available wherever OPI is sold including Ulta and Ulta.com!

December 26, 2013

Hi guys! Hope you had a great Christmas yesterday if you celebrate the holiday! Mine was nice, spent the day with family, nothing too fancy! Today I have 4 new glitters from Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure line to share with you. These are the Bling In The New Year Collection and they are perfect to add a little sparkle to any manicure! Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 24, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have a couple polishes from Lumina Lacquer to share with you! This is a new to me brand, they had a booth at the Love Preview event last month and I happened wander by it and had to stop when some of their glitters caught my eye! I ended up buying 2 polishes after a few minutes of hemming and hawing over several of them!

Pinball Wizard is a multi colored glitter bomb. This is packed with matte glitter in every color, shape, and size you can imagine. There is everything from star glitter to hex and moon glitter in here. The formula was good, it was very glitter dense and easy to get a lot of glitter onto the brush and nail. I did have issues with the glitter all wanting to clump together so it's a polish you do have to be patient with. I used 1 coat over Formula X Eureka for the photos below.

Lighting: Shade

Wrapped In Red is a red base with red shimmer and a sprinkle of holo and red holographic glitter. This is such a gorgeous shade, I almost didn't get it because it didn't look that special under the lighting at the club where Love Preview was but I'm so glad I ended up picking it up! The formula was fantastic, it was a good consistency and super opaque. I used 1 coat plus top coat for the photos below.

December 23, 2013

Hi guys! Hope you all had a great weekend! Today I have a small collection from Misa for Winter 2013 to share with you. I believe this collection is called Bluesy Blues and it's 3 gorgeous creme shades. I've seen this trio called 2 different names so I'm just going off how they have it listed on their website haha! If you like blues and purples these are right up your alley! I was excited about these even though they are colors I own a lot of, I'm a big fan of Misa and will almost always choose to use a creme from them over other brands if I'm trying to decide between 2 similar shades. I just really adore the formulas of their polishes, it always surprises me that more people don't know about how great this brand is! Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 22, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have a couple from Rococo to share with you. I heard of this brand a long time ago because they had a super expensive gold leaf top coat before they became all the rage last year. Until recently I didn't know they made other polish! I got the opportunity to try a couple, I really like the boxes these come in...they would make perfect stocking stuffers! I put a couple photos of the packaging at the end of the post so you can see what I mean!

Once Bitten is a red crelly. This was nice and opaque like a creme but dried super shiny and squishy like a jelly. The formula was good, it was easy to apply and I had no application issues. I used 2 coats for the photos below.

Poison is a dark berry jelly. This is much more jelly like than Once Bitten but it still builds up to be opaque pretty easily. The formula was good, it was a good consistency and easy to apply. I used 3 coats for full opacity.

Here is the packaging! How fancy are those boxes?!?

Below is what it looks like when you open the box!

Rococo polishes are on the high end side, most retail for $16.50. You can find them on Space.NK and Beauty.com

December 21, 2013

Hi guys! Hope you're all having a good weekend so far! Today I have the Fall 2013 Better Late Than Never Collection from CrowsToes for you! This collection is full of gorgeous shimmers and glitters. Unfortunately one polish will be missing from this post, Indian Summer, it died. I have like the most mickey mouse desk ever (a piece of wood on top of 2 Helmers) and it decided to just crash to the ground a couple weekends ago. Everything went splat on the floor and Indian Summer was the only casualty :( Needless to say I will be buying a new bottle of Indian Summer as soon as I can find it in stock somewhere. Until then I can tell you that it's beautiful and looks good on everything, including shoes, carpet, other bottles of nail polish, acrylic nail polish racks, bottles of nail polish remover, all over your hands and on sweatpants.

Anyway...check out all the swatches of the surviving polishes after the jump!

December 20, 2013

Happy Friday! Today I have the new Ballerina Collection from A England to share with you! This collection is made up of 4 new holos. I'm always excited to hear that a new A England Collection is out because the formulas are always flawless and I find the inspiration behind the shades kind of fascinating. I always like reading how Adina's thoughts behind the shades! Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 19, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have a new liquid sand polish from OPI called My Current Crush to share with you. This polish is only available in a duo called The Txture Effect, it comes with this polish and OPI's Natural Nail Base Coat. I had seen this duo at Ulta for a while and finally talked myself into it thanks to an awesome 20% off coupon I got in the mail from Ulta the other day. Can't beat that!

My Current Crush is a gorgeous purple texture with a sprinkle of small silver glitter throughout. This reminds me a lot of the Zoya PixieDust polishes so if you like those you'll like this. I really enjoy the color of this polish and the formula was good. I had no application issues the the opacity was nice. I used 2 coats for the photos below, all photos are without top coat.

Lighting; Shade

The Txture Effect duo is available at Ulta and Ulta.com , the duo retails for $14.95

December 18, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have the LCN Winter 2013 A Warm Homecoming Collection to share with you. This 4 piece is 3 cremes and 1 shimmer. I was pretty excited about these as soon as I saw them, I really enjoy a good creme polish and the 3 in this set are such beautiful colors that I couldn't wait to try them out. Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 17, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have a special polish from Serum No. 5 to share with you. Victoria from Serum No. 5 curated a great event back in November called Love, Preview. The event was done to raise money for No Kid Hungry, there were a lot of great indies there and the whole event was a lot of fun. For Love, Preview Victoria created a special polish, called Love Preview, that was only available at the event or by donating to the indiegogo page she had for the event before it happened. While I was at Love, Preview I decided to buy a couple extra bottles of this beauty to giveaway to you guys! Check out the end of the post for the giveaway!

Love, Preview is a black base with various sizes of gold glitter. This also glows bright blue in the dark! This is such a great representation of all the gorgeous polishes Victoria makes, it's beautiful in every kind of light and I really enjoy the glow in the dark! The formula was good, it was easy to apply and opaque in 2 coats.

This giveaway is open internationally, please see the rules below and enter via the Rafflecopter widget below!

Giveaway is open from 12/17/13 to Midnight EST on 12/26/13

You must enter using the Rafflecopter Widget below, entries left in the comment section will not count.

I will email the winners within 48 hours of the end of the giveaway.

Winners have 72 hours to respond to my email, if no response is received I will pick a new winner.

December 16, 2013

Hi guys! Hope you all had a great weekend! Today piCture pOlish is having a Collaboration Fest where all of the bloggers who have had the opportunity to create a shade with them are posting about our shade. I seriously can't believe it's been nearly a year since my shade, Mallard, came out. It feels like just yesterday I was coming up with the concept and then keeping it secret for what seemed like forever haha! I thought I'd repost my original swatches & story from back in January for those of you who weren't around back when Mallard was released. If you haven't picked up your bottle of Mallard it is still available from piCture pOlish and their network members all over the world, links too all the shops will be at the end of the post!

December 14, 2013

Hi guys! Happy weekend!! Tonight I'm going up to the LA area to look at Christmas lights. There is this area in Woodland Hills called Candy Cane Lane and the homeowners over there just go insane, it's amazing. I used to go here with my parents when I was little but I haven't been in years so I'm pretty excited! If you're in the LA/OC area and like Christmas lights you should check it out!

Today I have 6 holotastic polishes from Dandy Nails to share with you! I briefly met Sandy from Dandy nails last month at Love, Preview and she asked if I wanted to try these out so I said sure...I love me some holos after all! Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 13, 2013

Happy Friday! Anyone have big plans this weekend? I'm finishing up my Christmas shopping this weekend, I can't believe Christmas is in like 2 weeks...this year has flown by! Today I have 4 polishes that Super Black put out this year for Fall, they also have some gorgeous shades out for Holiday now! Their Fall shades included 3 holos and a really pretty shimmer! Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 12, 2013

Hi guys! Just a quick note before I forget (because I always forget to actually tell you in a blog post) the winner of my Serum No. 5 giveaway was Shifrah! I've already contacted her and heard back, her polishes will be going out soon! Thank you to everyone who entered, there will be another giveaway in the next week or so...I'm all Santa Jen over here lately lol! Today I have a quick NOTD post for you, I've had this mani on since Sunday night and have gotten a bunch of compliments on it so I thought I'd share it! I was in the mood to do some kind of nail art but couldn't decide what to do so I painted my nails white and just flipped through all the stamping plates I have to see if anything looked like something I wanted to try.

I stumbled upon a snowflake looking design on one of my Pueen plates and decided to give it a go. Stamping and I sometimes don't do well together so I wasn't sure if it would actually turn out nicely but I quite like the end result! I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the base and Misa Foggy Breath at 3am (weird name, I know) for the stamping. The plate is from the Pueen Sumptuous set, it's a design on plate 2! Both photos are in the shade!

December 11, 2013

Hi guys! Back to polish swatches...it's only been a couple days since a regular nail polish post but it feels like a lifetime to me for some reason haha! Today I have the newest collaboration shades from piCture pOlish to share with you! This set includes a couple shimmers and a couple glitters. Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 10, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have a bit of a different post for you, it's my ULTA Holiday Wish List and Gift Guide. I've never done a gift guide here on The PolishAholic but I got the opportunity to team up with Ulta so I thought it would be fun to give you guys ideas if you are trying to find a good gift for a friend or family member along with showing you some of the items I picked up from my personal wish list.

Ulta is a favorite store for me, I have quite a few locations near me and visit often. I love shopping at Ulta because they have such a huge range of products and brands ranging from drugstore items to high end brands. It's kind of a one stop shop for whatever kind of beauty product you're looking for.

December 9, 2013

Hi guys, hope you all had a great weekend! Today I have a PetBox to share with you. PetBox is a subscription service that does boxes for both dogs and cats. The boxes are very customizable and you get to actually pick what goes into your box every month so you know that your pet will like everything. I really love the idea of that, I think it would be very helpful for Degen who can be picky about toys the toys he likes.

Recently, I got an email from PetBox asking if I'd like to review one of their boxes, I checked out their website and noticed that they offer a box for cats. I always get a lot of comments on my BarkBox posts asking if there is a similar service for cats so I said heck ya and asked if I could review the cat version instead of the dog version. Check out everything Oreo got after the jump!

December 7, 2013

Happy weekend! Today I have a big bunch of Formula X Spam for you! Since my last Formula X post I have continued to go nuts and buy ALL THE THINGS so I have ohhh like 25 polishes to share with you. Most of these are from their Twenty Two set so I guess that only counts as one purchase...right? I had my eye on the Twenty Two set since these first showed up online, originally I decided against it because I kind of loathe mini's but then I got a mini as a 100 point perk and they are decent so that enabled me to buy the set during the Friends & Family sale. I think the set is actually kind of a great deal, you get so many polishes, it's the perfect way to try out a lot of the brand and there are a ton of different finishes and shades in the set. I also have a couple more full size polishes that I got during the VIB sale a couple weeks ago.

Check out all the photos after the jump, this post is on the picture heavy side so load time might be a little bit slower than normal.

December 6, 2013

Happy Friday! Today I have a bunch of comparisons for the Holiday & Winter Collections for this year. There may be a part 2 of this post, there were quite a few polishes I wanted to compare that were either MIA in my disaster zone of a stash or being borrowed by a friend. Anyway, this is kind of a long post so I'm not going to keep blabbing up here haha! Check out all the comparisons after the jump!

December 5, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have the new Serum No. 5 Holiday Collection to share with you, I also have a giveaway at the end of the post for this collection so make sure you go enter it! This collection is full of fun glitters, shimmers and of course, a couple gorgeous glow in the dark polishes. Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 4, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have the new Whimsical Ideas by Pam Collection for Holiday 2013 to share with you! This collection is called It's A Whimsical Life and it features 6 new shades and 2 favorites from last years Holiday Collection! I have been looking forward to this collection for a while, I always love what Pam does, it was such a nice surprise when these showed up at my door step. I think Degen likes when I get packages from Pam also because they smell like her cat Kismet, they always get an extra inspection when he's giving everything the once over haha! Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 3, 2013

Hi guys! Today I have 5 new polishes from Nicole by OPI to share with you. For Holiday this year they have added 5 more polishes to their Modern Family Collection, 3 shimmers and 2 new glitters. Check out all the swatches after the jump!

December 2, 2013

Hi guys! Hope you all had a great weekend, it was a nice 4 day weekend for me. It felt nice to actually get to relax but of course now going back to work is kind of a bummer. Today I have a couple Girly Bits polishes to share with ya! I decided to show you these two together because I wore them together and really liked the way they looked that way!

Mint to Be is a bright minty green creme, the formula and consistency of the polish were really nice. It was a tiny bit streaky on the first coat but completely opaque with the second coat. Off The Scale is a blue/green glitter. Depending on the light and the angle of your hand it shifts between the two colors. You can layer it or wear it on it's own...I've worn it a couple times and really love it on it's own. The formula is a little bit thick but nothing a little thinner can't fix. The opacity on it's own is good in 2 coats!

November 30, 2013

Hi guys, happy weekend! Anyone doing anything fun? I will be finishing a Helmer re-painting project I've been slowly working on! Today I have the new Holiday Trio from I Love Nail Polish to share with you! This trio is available for pre-order now (until Monday 12/2) at ILNP.com and it will be available for regular sale soon! If you like holos and/or multchromes you're going to need these...especially the multichrome! Check out all the swatches after the jump!

November 29, 2013

Happy Friday! Anyone do (or doing) any crazy Black Friday shopping today? Maybe I'm getting old but the crazy shopping just doesn't
appeal to me anymore, I'd rather spend my day off from work sleeping in
instead of getting up at like 2am to fight hoards of psychos trying to
beat each other down for a cheap TV. I might do some online shopping
today/Monday but I haven't really seen any deals that I feel like I
*need* to take advantage of.

Today I have new collaboration trio for the holidays, this trio features polish from Lacquer Lust, Polished by KPT and Serum No. 5. Each of the ladies made a a different type of polish, one is a holo, one is a thermal and one is glow in the dark. This trio will be available for $37.50 starting on December 1st at 12pst at each of their shops along with Harlow & Co for international buyers (not sure of a launch date there!). I'll have links to everything at the end of the post! Check out all the swatches after the jump!

November 28, 2013

Hi guys! Happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers! Anyone else excited to stuff themselves with all the yummy food today? I AM!! We're actually having tacos tonight, we're rebels...plus we just haven't really celebrated Thanksgiving much since my Grandpa passed away a couple years ago :( I'm finally going to see Catching Fire this morning, it's kind of a Thanksgiving and Christmas tradition to go to the movies. Today I have a quick post for you, nothing too special for Thanksgiving. I had actually planned on doing a themed mani but then the holiday just kind of snuck up on me and I didn't have time.

Today I have Different Dimension Ocean's Daughter for you to feast your eyes on. Ocean's Daughter is a light blue/green holo with a little bit of a pink flash. The holo in this is nice and strong, stronger than it looks in photos. The formula was good, a bit sheer at first but easy to build up. I used 3 coats for the photos below.